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What American History Can Tell Us about Health and Social Change

Today, health and healthcare are hotly debated political issues. We are also witnessing a resurgence of civil rights movements that call attention to race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and structural inequality. American history shows us, though, that grassroots, patient-centered change actually flourishes in times of concentrated civil rights activity. What we can learn from this history is that health is not merely an objective state of physical being. It is also, and perhaps first and foremost, a lived experience in a political, economic, and social climate.Continue reading →

Courtney Marshall is an English Ph.D., activist, and fitness instructor. Vital interviewed her to find out more about her unique experience and how she sees the relationship between narrative and health.

History is filled with stories never told. And a lot of those stories are about women whose contributions to society were mocked or ignored by their contemporaries.

Did you know, for example, that there were feminists demanding that women have the right to vote during the French Revolution? Did you know that Anna Julia Cooper, a daughter of an enslaved woman from North Carolina, got her PhD from the Sorbonne in 1924? Continue reading →

Have you noticed the way that many cartoons try to teach children to be kinder by avoiding common biases we adults run into all too often?

Caillou had to learn to treat his classmate with diabetes just like any other friend, even though she got to eat more snacks than he did. Sesame Street has celebrated diversity since its beginning, with episodes evolving over the years to address more prejudices that we adults are working to dismantle. Continue reading →